Love them Chocolate Drops!

I say, “Check ’em out. The Chocolate Drops are hap’nin’!” Click here to hear their version of “Starry Crown” on my Vox blog.

Before you get to thinking they’re just some dry, serious ethnomusic types, follow this link to YouTube and watch the Carolina Chocolate Drops cover Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style.” (This seems to be a big crowd-pleaser at their live shows.)

Now guess what? They’re coming to Cali! They’ll play at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica on February 8. The next day, it’s morning and afternoon gigs at the Music Center in downtown L.A.

Visit the Chocolate Drops’ MySpace page for more tour dates. And stream a few more of their tunes while you’re over there.

One thing I left out of the article was a question I had about whether people who don't know the longer connection of banjo music to Black folk had accused them at all of emulating or otherwise trying to connect to turn of the century minstrelsy.

They said they thankfully have not come across much of that but that a kid one of their school concerts asked them if they were slaves.